Phase 1 of Weaning: Complete

It looks like I've managed to successfully wean D down to just 2 breastfeedings a day now, and it only took a couple weeks! Since we've been worried about his weight and all, we've kept nursing pretty often all day long. I was actually kinda shocked when I recently was reading about how many breastfeeding mothers are down to 3 feedings a day by a year, b/c we were still doing about 5-6 over 24 hrs. But, I started cutting them down, and then we were down to waking, mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and then at bedtime. The other day I decided to combine the 2 daytime feeds into one mid-day one right after lunch, but then the day got away from me and before I knew it it was 3pm and figured, what the heck let's keep going with this. And so now we've gone 2 full days with only nursing when he wakes and then at bedtime. It's been a pretty easy process, I realize I'm lucky in that regard-- D hasn't seemed to mind at all (he was fussy for a bit, till I realized he was just HUNGRY so I've been offering snacks and food even more often, and he tends to scarf them down) and I'm not even very uncomfortable-- felt a little "full" by the end of the day, but that's it. When I started breastfeeding I had this concrete goal of nursing through the first year. Now that I've decided to keep at it (even if just twice a day) it's almost weird not having any sort of an end point in sight. Part of me looks forward to being totally done, and part of me thinks it's just going to be so WEIRD to not breastfeed him at all anymore, since it's been such a huge part of our lives together this past year. So we'll see how long Phase 2 of breastfeeding continues. As much as I've looked forward to reaching this point, I don't feel ready to totally stop yet, and am not sure when I will.

I must say, though, I'm so looking forward to going bra shopping now that I won't be restricted to ugly nursing bras anymore. ; ) (BTW browsing the VS website I saw they're selling nursing bras again, I highly recommend this one as it's the only lined, non-full-coverage nursing bra I've come across-- meaning you can actually wear shirts with a semi-low neckline!).

It's funny, after all the worrying about his food intake, I'm now thinking this kid's getting his recommended food allowances and then some. It turns out food portions for toddlers are tiny-- a serving of fruit or veggies is a tablespoon! So when I feed him a 3oz serving of sweet potatoes for lunch that's almost his entire daily recommended intake of fruits and veggies combined. Sweet. My one lingering concern was getting enough milk into him as I cut down on breastmilk. He likes cow's milk, but doesn't drink that much of it, but then again he's still nursing twice a day and he LOVES yogurt, eats at least one 4oz container a day, so I think we're pretty much set there, too.

At his 12 month check-up D was up slightly on his growth curve (first time in months), and this was after being sick for over a week and hardly eating a thing during that time. So it seems he's been eating quite well (when not sick) and packing on the pounds (ounces) lately. He's even got a belly again. I cannot tell you how nice it is to see him eating so well, to know that he's getting good nutrition, to know that I don't have to worry. Of course as soon as I write all this he could decide to go on a hunger strike, and I've often heard how toddlers are notorious for eating almost nothing, so we'll see what happens, but for now it's very very nice. =)